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This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more… 

For the first time this season there was somewhat of a surprise to Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds team selection at the weekend.

Missing from the squad was midfielder Adam Forshaw, a man who has been consistent on a regular basis in 2019/20.

He’s achieved an average match rating of 6.83 whilst mustering a pass success rate of over 90%.

However, with the former Middlesbrough man absent in the middle of the park on Sunday, it gave Leeds a sneak peek of how they can potentially fix one of the problems that developed against Swansea.

On the chalkboard

In their first defeat of the Championship season versus the Swans two weeks ago, Leeds failed to turn their possession and chance creation into anything of note.

They had 21 shots and 61% of the play and taking on Barnsley, it was a similar tale.

At Oakwell, though, the Whites had 66% of the ball and had the same number of shots.

For vast periods of the game, it looked as though the same outcome might arise.

But Leeds ended up with all three points and that could have been down to the way they played with Mateusz Klich and Jamie Shackleton, something that enabled them to fix a problem.

In Leeds’ loss against Swansea, this heat map above, via WhoScored, shows the positions Klich and Forshaw managed when kicking from right to left. However, as you can see, everything comes down the one side which left Jack Harrison isolated.

But that was different with Shackleton coming into the game. This time most of their play came down the left but there was also a bigger coverage on the opposite flank, proving how their abilities to roam came into effect.

Instead of operating in the same space, they were linking up in different roles which perhaps had a say on the 18 key passes they achieved on Sunday, compared to the 14 at Elland Road two weeks ago.

Against the Swans, just two key passes came from those playing in behind the striker but because of the spaces they occupied versus the Reds, Shackleton and Klich managed seven key passes between them.

Although it was inadvertent because Forshaw was missing, it did show how a problem had been fixed. Bielsa must learn from this going forward.

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